Meet Drew Lazor, Who Guest Hosted a Round Wednesday at Black Sheep

We’ve got a couple of guest hosts at quizzo tonight. One of them most of you already know. The Beerlass, aka the Lovely Ginger, will host our opening round at the Rendezvous tonight. Beer Lass is well known in beer circles for repping for Sly Fox, for hosting the IPA girls beer club, and for running her Beerlass blog. Of course, she has also helped me at several Quizzo Bowls.

The other one is not as well known in quizzo circles, but is quite well known in food circles. Drew is the Food and Web editor at the City Paper and creator and editor of the popular Philly food blog Meal Ticket. Drew was so fired up he asked if he could write his own round. I said “Sure.” He’ll host that round tonight at Black Sheep.

I asked Drew a few questions about himself, the best and worst of the local food and drink scene, and what he’d request for his last meal:

1. When did you first become interested in writing about food?

Have definitely always been into food, but mostly the egregious overeating of it until I was assigned the “Feeding Frenzy” restaurant column as a college intern at City Paper. Kinda went from there with it and eventually became the food editor. Now when people ask me what I do I tell them I write articles about cheeseburgers.

2. What’s been the highlight of your career so far?

A few years ago Georges Perrier called me at work and yelled at me for a solid 15-20 minutes because he was upset about a (very positive!) review Trey Popp wrote of Le Bec-Fin, right after it had rejiggered its approach to become more casual. I was so flattered! Seriously. I’m pretty sure he didn’t care who it was who answered the phone, he simply unloaded on my ass because I picked up, but still, I’ll never forget that. GP tore me apart! As far as writing goes I enjoyed writing a long piece about pizza in Philly last summer.

3. Give us three of your favorite restaurants in Philly and a quick reason why.

This is always difficult but I’ll try. Mémé because it’s an honest place and it has bone marrow and fried chicken. Nan Zhou because I like to watch the dudes stretch noodles and slap them on the counter. Bistrot La Minette because it feels like France and I’ve never even been there.

4. What’s the coolest thing about the Philly food scene right now?

All the street food that’s been popping off! All the trucks are great of course but then you’ve got a lot of up-and-coming operations that are outdoor/stationary, like the carts setting up at Garden Variety at 2nd/Poplar. And then the Vendy Awards are happening in July here too. I think it’s cool that it’s growing so quickly.

4b) What’s the lamest thing about the Philly food scene right now?

I’ve been whining about this for years. There is no late-night pho. WHY IS THERE NO LATE-NIGHT PHO PLACE? PLEASE SOMEONE OPEN THIS.

5. You’re being executed at midnight. The warden takes your order at 8 p.m. What are you ordering?

My mom’s lumpia (Filipino egg rolls), my dad’s Yorkshire pudding, my girlfriend’s guacamole, sizzling mussels from Mémé, beef and tripe in chili oil from Han Dynasty, a crab pie from Matthew’s in Baltimore, Arista roast pork sandwich from Paesano’s, Kelly’s burger from Grace Tavern and the entire suckling pig situation from Amada, washed down with a Yards Philly Pale Ale, a Ballast Point Sculpin, a Penicillin from The Franklin and anything with bourbon in it from Southwark. Then Sour Patch Watermelons. And a Twix. With water. Whole lotta water.

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Oh-ho-ho my goodness. Looks like you've reached the home of Philadelphia's only true man of leisure, Johnny Goodtimes. On this site you'll find the results of my weekly quizzoes, I'll show you some of the strangest and most interesting spots on the web, and you can read my rants and praise for this city, the people in it, and the sports teams that play here